The present disclosure relates to a semiconductor device, and, in particular, relates to the semiconductor device which includes an ESD (Electro Static Discharge) protection element.
In recent years, there has been demanded a multi-pin semiconductor device which includes I/C pins (input/output pins) of the number exceeding thousands with advancement of function and performance of the semiconductor device. Accordingly, an area of each I/O block has come to greatly influence reductions in size and cost of the entire semiconductor device. As examples of an element which is large in ratio that the area of each I/O block occupies, an electrostatic discharge protection element (ESD protection element) and a driver element of high driving power are given.
In addition, since device resistance is reduced as the process generation advances and a reduction in area is promoted, it becomes important to improve the performance of the electrostatic discharge protection element (the ESD protection element) and various systems are proposed in order to improve the performance (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-121007.